Why Russia's circular ships make more sense as monitors

What should historians make of the Russian circular warships?

Treat them as slow coastal monitors or mobile gun platforms, not as ordinary battleships.

Judging the ships as conventional battleships makes their circular form look purposeless. They make more sense as floating or moving islands designed to carry guns in inland and coastal waters. A later clarification identifies them as monitors, which better matches their actual role. Their low rate of fire remained a weakness, but within the limited mobile-platform mission they worked better than the battleship label suggests.